• Sharing – New Study: Sleep Is Literally a Deep Clean for Your Brain

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    Having trouble with stress and anxiety? The suggested solutions often require adding even more to our to-do list. Meditate, practice mindfulness, do acts of self-care, etc. But we often forget that maybe the most important act of self-care is getting enough sleep.

    Don’t even get me started on the fitness industry and the number of people who talk about “earning your food/sleep” through exercise. Argh!

    This study would indicate that sleep is not something you want to mess with. Simply getting enough would help us with our mental “junk”. No, it won’t cure depression or eliminate symptoms of bipolar, or any of the other things that some of your friends will, unfortunately, suggest, but it does serve a core function for the healthy functioning of your brain, and that is certainly one place to start making things better, no?

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    Would Everyone Benefit From Having a Therapist?

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    She goes on to document the appallingly low percentage of people who manage to get therapy, as well as the difference between white patients and minorities. She then goes on to talk about this in the context of the quote above, which I had not considered previously. If finding a therapist is truly like dating, and it is in my experience as well, how do we not only make sure that therapy is available, but that there is more than one to choose from?

  • Another Reminder – Just Because Something Works for Others, Does Not Mean It’ll Work For You

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    If Mindfulness is something that helps you, great. If it doesn’t, don’t beat yourself up over that fact, or continue a practice that is actually causing harm. That makes no sense at all. Just accept that it’s not for you, and hopefully, the people around us who are pushing it as the cure-all, especially the ones trying to sell it to you, can learn to accept that too.

    What has your experience with it been? What other “recommended” tools have not worked for you? How did you handle the folks who continue to tell you it would?

  • Sharing – Small Talk With A Stranger Can Still Save Lives, Says Samaritans

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I’ve talked about this a little bit, but maybe not in detail. When I was really struggling, I can’t necessarily say that someone starting a conversation with me made the difference that day. I don’t think I was self-aware enough to know that. What I do know, however, is that being seen makes a huge difference. In my depression, I did not want to be seen. I wanted to fade away. That was the driver behind my desire, to simply not be here. To disconnect from everything in order to disconnect from the pain I was in. Small connections helped me understand what I was giving up, and why I might want to rethink that.

  • Does Childhood Trauma Disrupt Our Storytelling Abilities?

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 3 minutes

    I will admit, in healthcare, these two types of narrative incoherence could cause a problem. How would a medical professional move forward with a diagnosis when our response to the first question is to dump an overwhelming amount of possibly relevant, possibly not, information, or to dismiss any symptoms? It really would be difficult to know. We know that the folks who get to the quickest, and best, healthcare are the ones who come in with details like what is wrong, how long it’s been going on, what happened previously to an illness or injury, etc. Trauma survivors typically struggle with exactly that.

    This is only one way where not being able to tell a story in a coherent, effective, way hurts survivors. It blocks us from legal proceedings, as I said before, and it blocks us from being understood by those closest to us quite often. So, if you really want to connect with others, and maybe get better healthcare, learn to tell stories. That’s how the world communicates. But, if you’re confronted with someone who is struggling to tell a coherent story, consider what kind of trauma they may be dealing with, and have a little patience.

  • Sharing – Why I Post About My Mental Health on Facebook

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Those folks need the opportunity to see another side to the story, and the more people who can safely tell their stories, the more we can let those folks know that they are, in fact, not alone.

    If I’ve learned one thing from having this website for close to 20 years and being active on various social media platforms, it’s that you never know who is reading, and how it might impact them. Some people will tell you, and others will never mention it, but they are reading it. Would you rather be the person who helped someone feel less alone, and provided some hope, or the person who shut them down?

    I know which one I have chosen.